My Own...

Personal Version of Hell is this:

12 hours in the car with the kids.

If, for some unforeseen reason, I end up in the Eternal HotSpot instead of at the Pearly Gates, I have to imagine that I will be sentenced to ride in the car with an 19-month old vicious beast and her overly-grown-up, tattle-tale brother for eternity.

We took off the day after Christmas to visit the fam in Baton Rouge. Now, I am not a good car person, so I dread almost any trip longer than a couple of hours. K, it seems, dreads them more than me... also because I'm not a good car person.

The first trip that K and I took to Baton Rouge was probably the most fun... for me, at least. After eight hours of playing The Question Game, K began to resemble Jack Nicholson's character in "The Shining"... so I stopped talking. That seemed to do the trick.

Needless to say, we don't play The Question Game any more....

Which means that I sleep... a lot. Once Ethan came into the picture, I thought things might change, but he is The Ultimate Child Traveler as long as he has his movies, sufficient snacks, and an occasional potty break.

I didn't think twice about traveling once Princess Laney arrived, but apparently, I should have. She is not a traveler... like her mother. She has a short attention span... like her mother. She likes to eat a lot and stop a lot... like her mother. Unlike her mother, though, she has not learned to suppress these urges in fear of launching her normally-almost-comatose father into a fit of road rage (which, apparently, 8 hours of The Question Game will do).

So, she whines. And cries. And makes a lot of noise.

While I am trying to read. Or sleep. Or tune out life as I know it in the car.

We finally made it, after 12 long hours... the last 2 1/2 of which consisted of:

1) Ethan announcing every five minutes, "I can't wait so long!" For what, we don't know, but dang it, he can't wait so long. We found that out.

2) Laney whining in that ear-splitting screech (that I now realize also sparks that involuntary muscle spasm up the back of my neck) until I would look at her. I also discovered this trip that looking back at her for any extended period of time makes me carsick.

3) Me trying to read while listening to my i-pod (a Valentine's gift from K that I didn't really know what to do with at first but now consider a God-sent blessing for trips because I can turn it up loud enough to drown out the sounds of two kids, two movies, the radio, and a grouchy husband who wants to know why I'm not listening to the 742 demands being made by the kids. Why am I not listening? Because I can't hear them or you. My i-pod is too loud. Sorry.)

4) K trying to deal with the kids (with occasional help from me because I feel guilty that I've left him in the world of the hearing... although I do now understand why my grandparents tried to rebel against getting hearing aids for so long... sometimes, it's wonderful to just not have to listen to the noise pollution) while becoming increasingly irate with me (also easy to ignore by closing my eyes and pretending to sleep... at least until Laney let lose with an ear-piercing shriek that triggers that involuntary spasm, making me jump and thus blowing my "sleeping" cover..)

By the time we got to BR, none of us were in any shape to visit anyone... Ethan was wired like he had been sipping liquid crack. Laney was in Primo Ultimate Diva Mode. K looked like he'd just come off of a 5-day drunk, and I was pretty much mute and unable to conduct any kind of intelligible conversation... always a great first impression with the in-laws...

In the days since, the kids have completely recovered, being resilient and young. K and I are on our way, although we were almost catapulted back to Square 1 after a trip to New Orleans today (the 50 minute trip took over 2 hours... anyone have a plastic spoon??? I'd rather gouge out my eyeballs than do that again...).

I do hold hope that the trip back will be pleasant and uneventful... but that doesn't seem to be the norm for us. (Out of the last three trips, we've managed to rack up two catastrophes, including a really expensive automotive breakdown and a nasty cracked windshield... both occurring in almost the same spot on two different trips... I would like to caution you against traveling anywhere close to Meridian, Mississippi, as I'm pretty sure that The Devil has taken over that town as his earthly headquarters...)

Who knew parenting could be this much fun?!?!?!

I think...

I have writer's block.
I cannot think of anything to write about. I mean, most of the time, the subject pops up, I start writing, and VOILA! a lovely blog appears on my screen.
Not so much right now.
I think it's because I'm distracted by the holidays. It is December 17 as I write this, and we still don't have all of our decorations up.... including those essential ones that go on the tree...
Yes, I know. We have failed mankind in the most serious of ways because we didn't have our tree up and decorated the day after Thanksgiving.
My bad.
On top of it all, I had to go find more decorations (because I can't find all of mine), when apparently everything lovely and attractive was snatched up by those out shopping the day after Thanksgiving...by all of those people who have been able to enjoy their fully decorated trees for several weeks now.
All of this -- my lost decorations, my sluggish start to the holidays -- requires me to go out into the "hustle and bustle" -- which is really more like a preschool free-for-all. Every ridiculous and annoying person on the planet is out, being excessively ridiculous and annoying, while I am just trying to get from Point A to Point B without cursing or killing someone.
Really? That 4th of July lawn decoration was on a 120% off Clearance rack but is ringing up .50 instead of .49, like it should? I will give you the bleepin' penny and wrap it for you to give to your great aunt Hilda if you will just get out of my way and stop holding up the line!
I think the hustle and bustle is zapping my creativity, so... I have -- after this year -- relinquished all Christmas duties to Keith.
I feel it only fair to publish this on a public domain so that you are all aware that you may never receive another picture of the kids, Christmas card, or normal Christmas gift... and our house may be decorated in a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree kind of fashion...
Now this sounds good in theory, but there are a few minor problems here...
1) I don't think that he thinks I'm serious.
2) I am a little bit of a control freak, and I may worry so much about how things are not getting done the way I would do them that it may ruin the whole rest-and-relaxation angle.
3) I don't want the kids' recollections of their early Christmases to be, "We never had decorations when we were little."
4) I wonder what he would send to the kids' Christmas parties for gifts... golf balls? Chips and salsa? Whatever spare change we have laying around the house? And would he wrap it up in brown paper lunch sacks? Would the kids be the laughing stock of preschool and kindergarten or would they think that Ethan and Laney's dad is the coolest?
5) Would he use big bulb lights, and if he did, could I still enjoy Christmas, or would I feel compelled to recite lines from "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" throughout the holidays? ("Say the blessing!")
Ok, well that stresses me out just thinking about it. We'll re-evaluate after this season... Maybe I'll let him start off with something small like Valentine's Day or picking out Easter outfits...

Things I Don't Understand (The Hilarity of It All)

So, I had to run a quick errand during my plan the other day. I relish any opportunity to get out of my concrete cubicle, so I skipped out to the MV, breathing in fresh air, sunshine, and the elixir of life-during-the-day-when-you-are-normally-couped-up-with-germy-kids. It was wonderful.



On the way back from my errand, I pull up behind what appears to be a normal car. I look away... something else caught my eye (shocking, I know, that my attention span is so minimal). I look back, and I think, "Something is odd about that car...." It seems really low to the ground.



About that time, I catch the eye of the odd-looking person in the driver's seat and he gives me the man-nod.



And then the car moves.



I don't mean moves forward. I mean moves up at an odd angle.



For a moment, I know I must've looked much like the RCA dog, head cocked at an unnatural angle.



I know I saw the car move, but it's not moving now..... and still, something isn't right.

Wait -- the front is much higher than the back. It wasn't like that before.... was it? Is my old age causing me to lose my memory?



At this point, I'm staring with my hand over my mouth, thankful I'm wearing sunglasses so it isn't exceptionally obvious that I'm staring while I sit in my non-mobile MV.



And the car moves again. This time, I see it, plain as day, and I realize that I am encountering hydrolics.



My first-ever, real-life experience with hydrolics that don't cause the car to bounce.



And then the show begins.



Just before the light changes, the car begins moving up and then down... rear bumper up... front bumper up... rear bumper down... front bumper down.

It is the craziest thing I have ever seen. The driver apparently sees my mouth gaping open and gives me the manly nod, then drives off as his car finally levels almost to the ground and then raises up to a semi-safe level so the belly of his car won't scrape up any roadkill...

Amazing.

I wonder if my MV can be tricked out like that....

I Take It Back.

My neighbors have issues, but I think their issues are much more complicated than not liking our harmless dogs. I take back the not-so-nice tone in which I wrote and ask that you say a prayer for them. Also, if anyone knows how to create an invisible force field around our house, I'm looking for estimates....

I am also...

A time waster.

I've had a morning of no classes.... and what have I done?

Email. All morning.

I haven't graded one paper. I haven't been the least bit productive.

Do I feel bad?

No.

What is wrong with me?

My parents raised me to be responsible and hard-working, and here I sit, loafing. So sad... so sad...

Does anyone else suffer from this disorder? I know I have a grading deadline next week, but still, here I sit. This is also a problem when it comes to housework... but that's an entirely different story.

Is there a treatment? A solution? Can I hire someone to grade for me?!?!

Any volunteers???

Sigh. I'm going.

Blog Overload

I almost had a serious crisis.

I went to log on to my blog, and the school had blocked the website.

Panic, wheezing included, ensued.

Obviously, they've rethought their stance on blocking my blog because here I am, in all of my wonderous glory, blogging away while my students take a writing test.

I should probably be grading other stuff, but what the heck! I like to live dangerously.

Anyway, once the panic lessened enough for me to breathe, it reminded me of the cell phone blowup of earlier in the year.

I'll make it short, since I can't remember if I blogged about this and am too lazy to look...

My first phone, a lovely Chocolate number of which I was very fond, was apparently highly sensitive to water/condensation... and apparently early morning telephone calls before the first volleyball tournament of the year out in the middle of a grass field next to the school (being the only place I could get reception) don't really agree with highly sensitive technological equipment.

MY solution: make a better phone or get your signal fixed.

VERIZON'S solution: laugh at the peon.

To make a long story short, the phone died, taking with it my contact list. I ordered a new phone, which I was told I qualified to recieve for free.... only I didn't recieve it (or any contact as to why not). When I finally was able to reach someone who could tell me what the problem was, it seemed my phone would not be free. I paid for the phone and then waited another week and a half to receive the phone, during which time I experienced an automotive crisis and had to depend on total strangers to ensure the well-being of my two kids and myself.

After all of that... I got the new phone -- a much lovelier orange thing -- for free.

And was named CEO of Verizon after theirs mysteriously lost his head to a very foul-tempered woman from some small town in the middle of nowhere.

Ok, I'm not CEO, but I did get the phone and some other bonuses for free.

The whole point is that I was completely lost without my cell, and I was about freak out about being out of touch with the outside world via the internet.

Alas, the problem is solved, and my heart beat has returned to normal. I've checked all of my normal blog sites, and they are all working. You, too, can relax and know that, for today at least, the blog is still up and running.

This gives you great peace, I know.

Showing my Rear...

Literally. Well, let me preface this with some background info:

Ethan, who has struggled a bit with the realization that he cannot show his superpowers at school (i.e. You can't hit somebody just because he/she is standing where you want to be), is on the sticker system.

If he has a good day, he gets a sticker. If he collects five stickers in a week, then we do something special, which usually involves Target, as he believes that Target was made specifically for his enjoyment.

Now, back to the funny stuff:

Friday afternoon, we celebrated our first five-sticker week with a trip to Target after dinner. Sounds simple enough, right? We pull into the parking space and start to unload the kids. As usual, we park next to a buggy thingy (because this makes the most sense to me, as I'm usually alone, with two kids and bags to unload... If I'm next to the cart thingy, I can put up my cart with minimal risk that some freak is going to try to steal one of my kids.)

I grab a buggy and roll it back to the car for Laney. Ethan is following close behind me. I'm thinking he's being a good little pumpkin.... He has other ideas.

As I approach K and Laney, a car turns down the aisle. Now my back is to the car, but it's headlights were huge and completely engulfed our little family in light... right about the time Ethan pulls the back of my dress up, fully extending his arms over his head and giggles, "Mommy, I see your hiney!"

Yes, son, so did every customer in the Target parking lot.

I was mortified, of course, because 1) I don't normally show my rearend like that and 2) I was wearing non-show-off quality undies. Not ugly, but definitely more comfy that cute.

At this point, K. was laughing so hard he was about to cry, Ethan thought he'd done something hysterical because his daddy was so tickled, and Laney was shrieking and cackling with no clue as to what was so funny.

I, on the other hand, was contemplating digging to China while wondering if such escapades were included in the Mommy Handbook chapters that I skipped...

My question is, "Why does this always happen to the Mommy?" I mean, I carry you in my belly, get stretch marks and all sorts of grossness, get up with you in the middle of the night and early on Saturday mornings. I take you to the park and to playdates. I buy your clothes and food and toys.

Why can't, for once, you pull your dad's pants down or something instead of lifting my dress or pulling the neck of my sweater down to expose my hoo-hoos to the elderly gentleman in the Brooks Brothers store? Vomit on your dad at work or ask him, while in the public restroom, if he has to go stinky or why the person next to him in the stall is making those silly noises.

Believe me, I'm tallying up the score. You just wait until you're about 15 and realize that we aren't as cool as you once thought.

It's gonna be on like Donkey Kong....

Oh, and...

Nix what I said about our neighbors liking animals. They don't like our dogs, and we are now officially enemies.

How can you not like Boudreaux, king of smelly lapdog boxers? Zelda -- I can understand her. We love her, but she has a princess complex (common in our family, apparently), and thus is very picky about the company she keeps.

Boo for mean neighbors who seem nice but then "anonymously" call animal control on well-loved, immunized, snuggly beasts.

Question

Does anyone else still make a Christmas list?

I've been working on lists for my family for about a month now, and I'm shocked to find that few people (as in ADULTS) actually make lists still.

I'm disturbed by this, as I think we should make lists for every holiday as well as general gift guides so as to avoid awkward/heinous/repeat gifts.

I am a list freak, though, so I don't know if everyone feels the same.

Now, I know it's really the spirit of giving that counts, and I'm not trying to sound greedy here. It's not the quantity of money spent but rather the quality of the gift. I, for example, love pens --specifically the felt tip Flair pens. They aren't terribly expensive, but a 4-pack of Flairs just lights up my life. I once had a co-worker give me a loaf of bread, a jar of creamy peanut butter, and a jar of grape jelly as a going away gift. I loved it and was so excited -- because 1) I love smooth pb & grape jelly sandwiches and 2) he paid attention to detail -- smooth, not crunchy; grape not strawberry.

That's what I'm talking about!

Now, K used to be a bad gift giver, but he has improved tremendously. I recently celebrated my *gasp* 30th birthday, and it was quite traumatic for me. (I loved being a 20-something, even when I was driving a mini-van.)

Before our first Christmas together, I pointed out several page-a-day calendars that I liked. (I'm also a calendar freak.)

I expected one.

He gave me seven.

Seven.

Do you have any idea how long it takes to maintain 7 page-a-day calendars? I put them in my classroom (because I do like calendars), but I had to assign the duty to a student. It was too time-consuming.

Now, there's nothing wrong with excess, but I was shocked. I didn't have enough open surface area in my room. I had to double them up.

And then there was the year that I paid the mortgage twice right before Christmas, and we were flat broke until two days before Christmas. I'd had my Christmas shopping done for a month, but K. had bought nothing.

Over the years, though I didn't think he could top last year. LAST year, I had a volleyball game on my birthday, but when I got home, he had gone all out: pizza from my favorite pizzeria, complete with chocolate chip pizza (which is my favorite food in the entire world) for dessert (4 of them -- one for dessert and three to snack on as I saw fit!). The gifts were thoughtful -- two maroon and black bags for me to use for coaching (one small, one large) and an assortment of other gifts... but the kicker was this: he had my Clemson diploma framed with a beautiful picture of Tillman Hall, the main education building and former residence of Toad where I have so many fond childhood memories of growing up as a Tiger.

It still brings tears to my eyes.

It wouldn't have mattered if he'd laminated the two together -- it was the idea, the thought, the effort behind it that made it so special.

This year, though, he came through again. My birthday was incredible. We celebrated for two days. A friend of mine (Cory, you rock!) planned the party, and Keith helped assemble the details....

And thus, the ultimate Wonder Woman (my childhood hero) 30th birthday bash was given.

He and Cory assembled my Clemson girls for a night of good eats and good times, and it was magical. I got to wear the crown. I got my own Wonder Woman cake. There were Wonder Woman decorations everywhere.... and my girls were there. Life doesn't get much better, as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, several people have commented (upon seeing me slave over my Christmas list) that I am in the minority, but I say there should be a gift list movement!

Register for general holiday and spontaneous gift giving ideas! (How many times have you gone to buy a gift and had no idea what to get? Wouldn't this solve this issue?!?)

Register for sizes and quantities and colors! (That way, if you want 74 place settings of china, you can get them over the next 50 years of your life! If you wear a size 8, you won't get size 24 pajamas!)

Gifts, of course, wouldn't be limited to just the list; the lists should be used as a guide.

Gift givers of the world, UNITE! Bad gift givers can be reformed with a little patience and guided shopping opportunities! No one should have to suffer opening another awkward/heinous/repeat gift again!

These Boots....

I found a precious pair of hot pink cowgirl boots on sale, and being the shoe fiend that I am, I snatched them up for my hot-pink-kind-of-girl, Laney.

I bought a size 6, thinking she was in a size 4 1/2 and would be able to wear them through the winter.

I had her foot measured a few weeks later -- around the middle of August -- and found out that she was not, as I had guesstimated, in a 4 1/2 but instead in a 5 1/2.

Ooops.

Last weekend, I decided to try the boots on her to see if she could wear them or if I'd need to be in search of a new pair of boots.

Big mistake.

As soon as I pulled them out of the box, she let loose this ear-piercing shriek of delight and grabbed them right out of my grasp. She even sat down on the floor for me to put them on her -- a sight rarely seen, as dressing her is normally akin to wrestling a silver-back gorilla.

They looked, of course, absolutely darling on her little chubby feet, and obviously match her rather colorful personality. Satisfied, I started to take them off.

Yet another big mistake.

Laney, who also has a penchant for wearing tiaras (and making her brother wear them), was not yet ready to relinquish the boots. She threw herself face down on the floor, turned the same shade of hot pink as her boots, and cried like I had just ripped her beloved Myrtle bear to shreds.

I tried to console her but nothing would work.

Now, Laney is the ultimate queen of tantrums, so we butt heads... a lot. Not only does she cry, but (I have to say, this --right now -- is my favorite part) she will eventually stand up, throw something (like her pacifier), glare at you (while still screaming like a banshee), and stomp her foot.

This performance followed the lay-on-the-floor-and-scream performance.

Finally, I picked her up, carried her downstairs under my arm like a bag of dog food, and handed her to her dad while I put the blasted boots back on her feet.... and off we went to the grocery store, with me wearing an exasperated expression and flip-flops and her wearing a sundress, hot pink cowgirl boots, and pigtails.

She got lots of attention, of course, which pleased her to no end... and I plotted revenge. I'm only buying her ugly shoes from now on.

She may have won the battle, but The Princess will not win the war. I am the Queen, and I will reign. My crown is much bigger...

Previews of What's To Come...

I'm really writing this to myself as a reminder, but I thought some of you (who know Laney... or me) might find this amusing and come back tomorrow (or next month... whenever I get around to it...) to read more....

Laney is obsessed with her pink cowgirl boots.

And when I say "obsessed," I mean OBSESSED.

She's 15 months old.

It's going to be a rough 18 years....

Testing.. Testing... 1-2-3

My elementary school chorus teacher used to test the microphones this way before performances.... I never understood why. Any insight on that???

On another note.... y'all, school is kicking my butt! I'm teaching a class during my plan for another teacher who is out on maternity leave. Now, I am the queen of wasting time during my plan... I can always find something else to do besides grade papers and whatnot... but I've realized how much I actually accomplish now that I don't have a plan at all.

Like posting to my blog. :)

Lots has happened around the house...
1- We have neighbors. People have finally moved in to the house next door. Our dogs, however, are protesting the encroachment on their territory by baring their teeth and terrorizing the new neighbors' 10 year old son. Thank heavens they like animals....

2- Ethan has started Big Boy School. I cried.

3- Laney is finally showing signs of being a person instead of a demanding, crying, whining spawn of Satan disguised (in the presence of company, of course) as a precious, smiling baby.

4- School has started. Volleyball has started. I don't want to jinx it, but I think we might win a few this year.

5- C-L-E-M in cadence count! Yes, that's right, boys and girls! It's football time in SC -- and (although they are performing well) I don't mean for The Gamecocks! We'll have more to say about the season and how we're going to have to sell our kids on the black market to pay for tickets next season.

There's much more, but I'm squeezing this in while my kids are working on an essay, and the natives are starting to get restless....

Please Tell Me I'm Not Alone...

I don't know if it's because school is getting ready to start again (my kids come tomorrow) or just because I'm about to *sob* exit my 20s.... but something is a little off. For whatever reason, I have piled one embarrassing moment on top of another over the course of the last week, and I need it to stop.

I like to imagine myself as a suave, cool, collected, urban do-it-all kind of girl... I'm a coach, a mom, a wife, a teacher... I have interests and am involved in various things.

Turns out, I'm just a bumbling, uncoordinated blob.

Ex. 1: K. happened to be in town last week around lunchtime and called to see if I wanted to meet him. Now, it just so happened that this was the day of our district wide meeting, for which we are supposed to look presentable, and I was wearing heels.

I love my heels and girly clothes, but I took a break from them this summer in favor of flip-flops and what K. calls my "mu-mus" -- or billowy, loose-fitting sundresses. In my effort to reacquaint myself with my grown-up clothes, I opted for one of my favorite pairs of shoes to make the transition less painful.

These shoes rock. Stiletto heels, leopard-print sandals. Not scary hooker sandals, mind you -- just cute summer sandals. Very versatile. Very much my taste. Love them.

Anyway, as we exited the building, I noticed that my belt -- a beaded brown tie-on kind of thingy -- is sliding down. For whatever reason, I cannot get the bleepity-bleep belt tight enough to stay up. (I think it's because it is made from glass beads.... it's definitely not because I'm some sort of waif who is too small for clothes.)

I was trying to keep up with Keith while at the same time inconspicuously removing myself from the belt. When I tried to step out of the belt as it slid down my hips, my stiletto heel caught in the hem of my knit gauchos.

Knit is stretchy, you know, but apparently not so stretchy that it would accommodate the distance between the hem and the ground. (Gauchos, for those that have no idea what I'm talking about, usually fall just below knee length.)

Instead, when gravity kicks in and forces me to put my foot down -- while the heel is still entangled -- the gauchos only stretched so far before sliding down my hips as well.

Yes, that's right. I'm standing in the middle of the sidewalk at a busy local eatery with my belt on the ground and my pants halfway to my ankles.

I mooned the entire east side of the building.

Well, technically, it wasn't a moon because I was wearing underwear (and nice ones, at that, thank heavens)... but really... it was as close as I ever want to be to showing my A.... well, at least, involuntarily. :)

A-Hem.

In honor of the upcoming football season, I have redesigned my blog to reflect my team allegiances. Please enjoy the lovely colors of my Tigers as you peruse my thoughtful reflections... :)

Also, I just published a blog... but it published itself in July (because that was when I started it). It's called "Things I Love About Being A Mommy." Feel free to find it and read it... I've got to go intercept Ethan. It sounds like he's fixing himself a snack, and that's never good news... unless you're one of the dogs...

May As Well Burn the Stilettos...

Random event of the day:



I'm driving home from dropping Haley, my BF Kel's oldest, off at her house after an exciting playdate at our house. I'm talking to my girlfriend Amy on the phone, trying to decipher conversation between Laney's ear-piercing shrieks of frustration because her $#&*(#@)* musical animal thingy is not performing up to her expectations and Ethan's softer-but-still-highly-aggravating whimpers about not having a toy.



(Let me interject here that Ethan has a gazillion toys -- of which he prefers anything from McDonald's, the Dollar Store, and/or the Power Rangers collection to any of the really cool, cute stuff that I find for him... but whatever -- but the problem at this moment is that he doesn't have Laney's toy.)



I am about two seconds from parking the van safely on the side of the road (because we are still paying for it), double-checking the kids' safety belts (because I do love my kids, even though I could make millions if the government could ever figure out a way to harness whine power to make nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction), and going to play in traffic (although this would be pointless, as we live close to the middle of Nowhere and I was, in fact, traveling through Nowhere on my way home, so there would be no traffic, and I would be more likely to die of starvation than be hit by an automobile moving fast enough to do any damage.)



While contemplating all of this and simulatneously carrying on an adult conversation with my friend Amy, the MV tops the crest of a small hill and...



OH MY LORD! THERE IS A COW LOOSE!



(That would be the end of my adult conversation with Amy, whose moment of stunned silence indeed made me realize that I am no longer a hip, chic, urban woman... but then, I may never have been...)



BACKGROUND: I grew up in the country where it was not uncommon to see livestock roaming free... like in our backyard. WE didn't have livestock because my dad, although fabulous, is not so much the farmer type. (He discovered new potatoes long before the culinary world... except he was trying to grow full size potatoes... but ended up instead with a crop of raw tater tots...) A lot of our neighbors did have farms or farmed on the side, so for the first eighteen years of my life, I walked outside most mornings inhaling the smell of cows or chicken coops (depending on which way the wind was blowing). My friends from The Ville -- although always up-to-date on cultural trends and fashion -- could also identify a soy bean, assist in birthing goats, and kept baby cows for pets.



(K. was very disturbed the first time I mentioned that my friend Karen and I used to walk her baby cow down the road. He thought I meant we loaded her up in a cattle carrier... I meant that we put a rope lead around her neck and took the cow to walk. Didn't seem strange at the time...)



For fun, we got together to hang out. Since The Ville is really small, we'd sometimes venture out to near-by, more densely populated towns for typical fun at restaurants, malls, etc.... but my favorite memories from growing up include camping out in cow pastures, cow tipping, snipe hunting, and midnight sign collecting walks. (I won't elaborate on any of those as my mom may some day join the rest of the free world, get a computer, and read my blog... and I don't want to have to explain any of that.)



Anyway, once I went to college and eventually moved away, I lost a lot of my accent and learned that I didn't have to wear overalls to prove I could drive a tractor. As time went by, more and more new acquaintances seemed to be shocked to learn that I grew up in a town with no red lights, a speed limit under 50 mph, a gas station that still has family charge accounts (on receipt paper... not programmed in a computer), and other rarities such as sunshine, green grass, and fresh air (well... at least, air not contaminated by chemical pollutants... the cows and chickens took care of that...).



I learned that going barefoot is not always the best option, that "town" is not a 30-minute drive from everywhere, and that expressions like "Well... if he don't look like Who Done It!" are not so common outside of my hometown.



(And no... I don't know Who Done It. This saying, in addition to "Put on the brakes." and "hose pipe" top K's list of most annoying expressions ever.)



Moving back here was a little bit of a shock, even though we didn't move all the way back to The Ville. We settled about 20-25 minutes outside of my hometown... a little closer to the bustle of A-Little-Bigger-Than-A-Small-Town town life.... and although I can drive to one of the main highways in this area in less than a minute, I can also be in the middle of the cow pasture in about the same time.



K. loves the idea of what he calls "country living"... even though I think that, to him, it really just means having a "tractor"... which is really a large lawnmower and not really a tractor like what I think of... I, on the other hand, find this to be a lot more urban than where I grew up... but there are elements of home...



Like the cow. (Back to the story.)



So, there's a cow standing on the side of the road, outside the fence. A cluster of still-imprisoned cows are standing behind the rebel cow; the rebel cow is standing, butt to the crowd, facing the horizon like it's a new day for beef providers everywhere.



After the momentary shock, I immediately start freaking out... because everybody knows that cows can cause serious car wrecks. (Think Tommy Boy, except with a cow outside instead of a deer inside.)



I hang up with Amy and start calling my family because they still live in the country and would know what to do.



No one, of course, is at home.



So I call Keith... I guess just so I can tell him there's a cow out less than a mile from our house, as he'd have no idea what to do with a cow.



He doesn't answer.



I turn around because I know that whoever owns this cow needs to be told before 1) there's a wreck, 2) some city folk calls animal control or the police, and 3) the cow ends up in the Publix meat case years ahead of schedule. (That was a joke. A farmer isn't supposed to sell a cow's remains if the cow dies in a situation like this.)



As I'm heading back to a local grocery/meat store/restaurant, I decide to call my friend Mrs. Leverette. She and her husband, Henry, live just across the way, and they have much more experience dealing with out-of-control wild life than do I.



(Mrs. L. and I teach together, and she is one of the main reasons I look forward to going to school. Not only is she absolutely hilarious, but Henry is also a riot -- although I'm not sure he means to be. He just makes me laugh; I think I scare him.)



As long-time residents of The Springs, they have encountered wild turkeys, deer, a llama (I think... but I could be making that up), and a various assortment of other critters.



Henry, as the self-proclaimed mayor of The Springs, is also -- as best as I can figure -- the closest to law enforcement (with his fellow Michelin men that drive big trucks) that we have out this way.



I explain the situation, and Henry passes down his verdict: Go get your gun and shoot it.



If it were in my yard... maybe... but I'm thinking that since the cow is still on its own turf, that might cause some sort of war between the other cows and my posse... and K, the kids, the dogs, and I are nowhere near as tough as these big honkin' cows.



So, I opt to drive to the closest driveway (because the house is so far off the road I can't see it) and see if the cow belongs to them.



Turns out, I'm too late. Another fellow ruralite has informed the farm staff that a cow is out and, although it doesn't belong to them, they're going to contact the owners before anything happens.... like someone calling the police or trying to snatch the beef.



Relieved, I relay the message to Mrs. L. (who overheard the entire conversation anyway because I wouldn't get off the phone until I was sure the people at the end of the long driveway were not of Deliverance calibur).



My good deed for the day done, I turn the MV toward home with my two now-sleeping kiddies in the back.



Life in the country is good. This is the most excitement we've had since Laney's birthday party, when the six-foot-plus black snake slithered out of the dog pen and into terrain previously occupied only moments before by my girlfriend, her twin daughters, and her husband....



But that's a story for another day.... I've got to go finish my chores before we have to snuff out the candles and get some shut eye so we'll be ready to get up with the chickens tomorrow...

THE END IS IN SIGHT!!!

So, here we are, two MVs cruising the outskirts of Myrtle Beach, looking for some tire help... and we stumble upon the only Wal-Mart in the history of mankind that doesn't have an auto center.

Now, I'm in my own MV, so I didn't hear this part, but I'll relate what I was told by the passenger (a.k.a Kelley).

Bess pulls up to the front of the Wal-Mart, as we had to turn around in the back of the store because we kept driving around the back of the building to find the auto center that, of course, we realize doesn't exist.

There's a gentleman standing on the sidewalk, near the end of the building where she pulls up, and I can tell that she's probably going to ask directions when she eases the MV up next to him.

Before I relay the conversation, let me just say that Bess is hilarious. She has a very sharp, dry sense of humor, and most of the time, she doesn't mean to be funny... but she is.

Apparently, the conversation went something like this:

Bess: (on the verge of some sort of breakdown) Excuse me, sir, but can you tell me if there's another Wal-Mart with an auto center or any other kind of repair shop near here?

Random Man: aslkdfjdiogapffisdfoisjg;iahf;oweja no English. (That translates into: "I don't speak English.)

Momentary Pause

Bess: "Of course you don't."

And the MV pulls away.

I, of course, am a little perplexed as to why we're still cruising the Wal-Mart parking lot until I see Bess pull up to another person. I assume that the first man just didn't know of another store or maybe wasn't familiar with the area... but of course, that would've been too easy. Bess finds the one person in the non-tourist section of the Redneck Riviera that isn't visiting from one of the 48 continental United States.

The next guy, I am happy to report, knows his auto stores and directs us to the next Wal-Mart which does, in fact, have an auto center. We successfully locate the new store, as it is almost -- like two hairs -- from being dark and we have no idea where we are.

Of course, the impending darkness means that the auto store is also -- what else? -- closed. Now, the man closing up the repair bay apparently recognizes that Bess is a potential candidate for a fit of postal-type rage, and he generously volunteers to stay late and fix her tire.

Thrilled and ready to get out of the car, we park and take off into Wal-Mart.

TRAVEL TIP:
Wal-Mart is not the place to take six children-- or three adults -- who have been cooped up in cars all day long.

We are acting like we have never been inside a Wal-Mart before. It might as well be Neiman Marcus or Saks.

We have about an hour to kill, and it seems the hour will never pass. (Obviously, we came to our senses shortly after entering the store, as Wal-Mart is -- on most days -- very similar to my idea of what Hell must be like.)

Finally, with a cart full of stuff we probably don't need, we hear the intercom man say, "Mrs. Wurst, your van is ready."

The angels break out singing the Hallelujah chorus.

We speed back to the auto center to check out.

Now, at this point, Ethan has Riverdanced all over my very last nerve, and I am trying really hard not to be surly... until the very bitter old geezer working the auto center register sees me pull a bunch of bananas from the cart.

"I can't check you out here," he growls.

"Excuse me?" I ask politely, thinking maybe the register isn't open.

"I SAID, I can't check you out here. If you have stuff that has to be weighed, I can't check you out."

WHAT RACED THROUGH MY AND WAS HOPEFULLY CONVEYED BY THE SKIN-SEARING GLARE ON MY FACE:

Excuse me, sir.

Do you see this look on my face? Do you not recognize the look of someone under extreme duress? You must not, or else you would not be talking to me like my dog just peed on your leg. I know you want to go home, and I know you're having to stay late because some mom and her silly friends came in with a flat tire two minutes after closing, but I need YOU to know that WE have been in a car for, at this point, 10 hours with all kinds of misfortunes befalling us every 200 yards and six kids that, bless them, just want to see the beach, and a trip that should have taken four hours is still not over, six hours after it should have been. You may be in a bad mood, but I PROMISE -- your mood is nothing compared to mine.

Do not talk to me like I am a three year old, or I will resort to a real ugly tantrum.

WHAT I REALLY SAID:

Nothing.

Having been raised by Ms. Manners herself, I bite my tongue but turn on sharply on my heel with the buggy and Laney in tow, hoping my body language is the equivalent to the bird (hand gesture, not feathered friend) I really want to fly in his direction.

I go up front, stand in line for about ten minutes, check out, return to the back... and the man still has not finished ringing Bess up.

Ethan, who stayed behind with Kelley and the others while I went to check out, chooses this moment to pitch a small tantrum because he can't watch a movie on the tv in the waiting area.

The man who fixed the tire comes to the rescue again. I must've looked like I was about to blow Ethan to bits with my telepathic mental powers because the tire man says, "Hey! Come look at this!" and proceeds to entertain the kids for the next 10 minutes pretending to be magic.

They are enthralled by him. I have never seen anything like it in my life. The man has missed his calling. Here he is, working in an auto shop, when he should be entertaining kids at parties and whatnot. Even I, in the midst of my plotting evil revenge against the Grump Monster at the register, have to laugh... which felt good, considering my other options are to cry or rip the Mean Man's limbs off one by one.

FINALLY, Master Grumpy the First finishes ringing the girls up, and the tire man helps us to our cars.

It is time for dinner, and then we're on to the condo! I can hardly believe the time is at hand.

We swing by Chick-Fil-A for a quick bite and a little playtime on the playground. The kids are ecstatic about getting to play, and we girls are ecstatic because the ordeal is almost finished.

Or so we think.

Just as we are wrapping things up, taking kids to the bathroom, throwing away trash, etc.... a man comes in from the parking lot.

"Is anyone here driving a Nissan Quest?"

"We are." I'm the only adult not in the bathroom, so I take charge.

"Did you know you have a flat tire?"

I can't even respond. There are no words to describe the depth of despair that I am feeling right this moment.

Bess appears and says, "What's wrong?"

The man repeats what he has discovered. Bess, incredulous and 99% sure that this has to be a very un-funny joke, follows him outside.

I, still dumbstruck, am just standing in the middle of the restaurant, gawking, when finally, I come to my senses.

Unfortunately for him, it is at this moment that one of the nice Chick-Fil-A employees (because aren't they always incredibly pleasant?) begins mopping nearby. Unaware of the incredibly brutal trip we have experienced thus far, he asks innocently, "What's wrong?"

Now, I don't know why I sometimes lose control of myself, but I think at this point, I had just reached the ultimate limits of my patience.

"The tire is flat! I cannot even believe this! We just left Wal-Mart not thirty minutes ago with a brand new tire! How can this happen?!?!? Really! This has to be a joke! But it's not funny! It's NOT funny!!!"

Bless him. The Nice Employee had no idea, when he chose to be nice and show concern to a fellow human moments before, that he would, in fact, be addressing a Crazy Lady who has been riding shotgun through Hell for the past almost eleven hours.

A look of serious concern crosses his face, and he begins to slowly back away.

Probably a good idea.

Kelley returns, and she and I join Bess outside while our kids are running amok inside the restaurant... and we don't even care. They want to run around like wild banshees, screeching and screaming? Go ahead. Be my guest. Does it bother us that we are in a public place and our kids are acting like someone just set them free in Disneyland? Not in the least.

At this moment, we are staring -- mouths agape in painfully silent disbelief -- at the completely flat tire on the Quest.

It is 9:00. Chick-Fil-A is closing. We have nowhere to go and no way to get anywhere, even if we did have somewhere to go. The kids are all but climbing the walls. We are bone-tired, on the brink of hysterics, and completely out of cell phone service.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen. We don't even have a way to contact anyone. We are four hours from home, thirty minutes from our condo, and stuck like we walked into a puddle of superglue.

This is unbelievable.

Fortunately, we are at a Chick-Fil-A, which happens to employ only The Nicest People Ever... so they let us use their phone to make our calls, even though they are all long distance, and they don't even complain that it is past their closing time and we are still not only at the restaurant site but also actually occupying space inside the restaurant.

The Grumpy Man at Wal-Mart will never be able to get a job at Chick-Fil-A. That is for sure.

Anyway... first, we call Wal-Mart. Bess talks to the manager, who must be related to the Grumpy Man because he is surly and not the least bit helpful.

We make a few other calls, and then finally, we call Megan, who thinks we're kidding about the flat tire.

"Seriously -- where are y'all?"

"At Chick-Fil-A. The tire is flat -- swear."

"You must be joking. There is no way this much stuff can happen in one day."

That's what I thought. We couldn't possibly have any more bad luck.

After a few more phone calls, the man who discovered the flat tire returns with his air compressor, bless him, and pumps the tire up.

Megan shows up with The Party Van (I'll explain that later), and we decide to drive all three vans to the condo and just figure out something in the morning.

Finally, after a quick stop for gas and a quick detour to the Home Depot parking lot to check the tire, we get to the condo.

It is 11:30... thirteen-and-a-half hours after we pulled out of A-town.

We're pretty sure we've just set some kind of record... and it's just the first day of the trip....

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

Luckily for you, the rest of the trip was incredibly but thankfully glitch-free. Can you imagine how long the blog for Day 2 would be?!?!

*********************************************************************************
PS --

About the Party Van... Megan (known as Mimi to the kids) told us before we left that she'd borrowed a van from a friend of her grandmother's. We were thinking "mini-van," but when Megan said van, she meant VAN.

She shows up to rescue us at C-F-A, driving a Club Wagon...you know... a fifteen passenger van.

Had I not thought my head was about to spontaneously combust, I probably would have wet my pants laughing. Megan never does anything the conventional way.

Now, the kids thought it was phenomenal. They fought over who got to ride in the Party Van. You would've thought they were fighting over front row seats to Disney on Ice or something. Ethan, who has decided that Megan's Party Van is second only to Papa's truck -- which is his favorite all-time vehicle--, still talks about the fun times he had at the beach in Mimi's ride...

So... Back to the Trip...

Here we have the next chapter in the Never-Ending Story...

After parts start falling off of the Quest, we decide we'll stop at the next populated place and find a garage... just to be safe, since we are minus one panel of some unknown importance and a lot of tire pressure.

We pull off in Bishopville, and -- can I just say -- this might have been the highlight of the trip down. The man who ran the garage -- both are nameless because I can't remember -- was super nice. The young woman in the office gave us paper and crayons and an air-conditioned place to wait.

Oh, and it had a potty. Definite bonus with 6 kids.

The local law men came in, chatted with us a bit. Ethan launched into a twenty minute description of James the Cat (my brother Jay) who also carries a gun and is a po-weese. Thank goodness they were amused by my big-noggined pumpkin, or they might've arrested me for assault with a deadly weapon (Ethan's never-closing mouth).

All in all, our pleasant moods were restored, especially when we found out that the plug (which is illegal, just so you know) had come loose from the hole in the tire that had already been patched... so this guy just re-patched the tire for minimal cost and said we were good to go.

Score!!! We'll be soaking up sun by mid-afternoon.

Whatever.

We drive for a while, visions of beach fun dancing in our heads... until the air pressure starts dropping again.

I believe, at this point, we stop in Florence, only to be told by the man at the Sears auto place that we'll have to wait hours to get the tire fixed there and that our best bet is just to keep putting air in the tire until we get to the beach.

Needless to say, none of us will be frequenting that Sears if ever we return to Florence. He obviously didn't want us to write glowing letters of recommendation to his bosses and his bosses' bosses because he went out of his way to help three lovely damsels in distress.

We start looking for the closest place with an air pump, and up ahead, we see what appears to be a gas station/grill kind of place and pull in.

We drive around... but can't spot the air pump, so I volunteer to go in.

Oh. My.

All four people in the building are in the grill/restaurant area of the store sitting around the table.

All four are drinking Budweiser... in the middle of the afternoon.

All four are missing some serious teeth... as in there's probably one set between them all.

No one is manning the register. No one is outside helping customers.

No... they're all taking a beer break.

Sweet. We're having a crisis, and our lives depend on four people -- without full sets of teeth -- that may be intoxicated.

One of the gentlemen -- who, let me say for the record, was as nice as he could be -- directed us down the road to another place that he was pretty sure would have an air pump.

Back in the vans, we drive until we find this place -- again, the name of which I cannot remember -- but I will say that there were large signs advertising that they sold moccasins (a true low country souvenier, as the American Indian population is huge there) and low carb chocolate covered peanuts... or something like that.

Not quite as bad as South of the Border, but one can tell that this place is striving to be a close second...

As scary-touristy as it is, they do have an air pump. Elated, we all pile out, ready to pump the tire up.

With the first quarters that I put in, nothing happened.

So, I put more quarters in the machine.... and air! Air!!!

We unscrew the tire cap, attach the air hose, and... realize the cap on the air hose is broken. Air is just swooshing out everywhere, but none is going into Bess's tire.

Kelley makes a quick phone call -- and this is a good place to add that, at this point, all of our cell phones are dead except Bess's -- and comes back to say that we need to get a can of Fix-A-Flat from the store. That should solve the problem until we can get somewhere.

And it probably would have... if the can top hadn't broken off on the tire valve.

We all just stare at the tire, with all kinds of foamy stuff sealing around the valve.

That did not just happen. Surely, this is some kind of cruel joke.

Oh, no. It's for real. Someone runs into the store and returns with a random man who fiddles around with the tire for a few minutes and then sends us on our way.

We finally drag into the outskirts of Myrtle Beach, flashers glowing, as the air pressure begins to steadily drop. Luckily, we spot a Wal-Mart and pull in to get the tire changed completely... only the Wal-Mart DOESN'T HAVE A BLESSED AUTO CENTER!!!!!

The day, like this blog, will never end...

I'll be back soon to wrap up the saga....

Never Fear....

I am not dead. I will finish the trip blog.

But not tonight. I am nursing a terrible blister. I got it from pulling weeds from the striped grass this morning... almost lost a finger to a black widow spider... but that's a whole different story.

Anyway. I have this blister and decided to sterilize it this evening about 7:30 PM. Clipped the skin off to fully open the wound. Poured hydrogen peroxide over finger.

I won't repeat what I said when the burn set in, but let me just put it to you this way: childbirth had NOTHING on the pain in my finger.

I didn't think peroxide was supposed to burn... just bubble and clean all the yuckiness out. I've been putting peroxide on wounds for years. No burning.

Turns out, peroxide burns the &#$@*(#*@ and then some when you pour it on blisters. My finger is still throbbing, and Keith is still cackling to himself every few minutes, as he says that witnessing the moments after the pouring is by far the funniest thing that he has ever laid eyes on.

This is a public service announcement.

The Trip -- Part III

I've got to get this thing finished! I'm going to be 80 and still writing about the multiplicity of tumultuous events from the trip... (A few big words, just for you, Kitty...)

Ok... so where did I leave off?

Oh, yeah -- the crazy axe murderer.

So... we finally leave the garage in Clinton, home of Elvis Pressley Boulevard (which, by the way, is a scraggly residential side street that, if I remember correctly, eventually becomes a dirt road...), and we're hungry. We start out following the directions of the man at the garage...and we get a little lost.

I know we are in serious crap when Bess chooses to turn around on Elvis Pressley Boulevard.

It was a sign. An omen, even. I swear.

And, no, I didn't misspell the street name. That's it... two S's. Another omen. I mean, I love Jimmy Buffett... and I cannot ever remember how to spell his name (except that I just googled it)... but I'm also not naming my street after him... with his name misspelled. If I only had a red Sharpie... I would've corrected that road sign... even if Lisa Marie and the rest of the clan came after me with shotguns and PB & banana sandwiches...

We finally get back to what looks like a familiar interstate road after turning around in Priscilla's front yard. A few miles down the road, we discover an exit with a McDonald's and stop.

Lunch passes with no issues other than those to be expected when you try to take six kids to McDonald's during lunch rush hour, but those things are oddly reassuring after the morning's adventures.

We get back on the road.

Have I mentioned that it's hot? Like make-you-see-mirages-in-the-desert kind of hot.

It's about this time -- somewhere in the vicinity of Camden, I think, but at this point, I think I've started blocking out the memories, so I'm not 100% sure -- that disaster strikes.

Again.

I'm in the car with Bess; Kel is driving my car; Megan and Teri are sipping sweet tea on the patio of the condo that the rest of us will never see. In Bess's van, we're steadily watching the air pressure computation from her amazing MV console screen, and it's going down.

We're concerned, but like educated adults, we're discussing our options when -- WHAM! BAM! THUT-THUT-THUT!

Holy cow! I'm thinking, "The axe murderer has pulled a Robert DeNiro, and attached himself to the bottom of the van, consequently hitching a ride to Cape Fear, I mean, Litchfield where he was going to slice us to ribbons... but apparently he accidentally let go and we ran over him."

A check of the rearview mirror.

No body.

All the while, it sounds like we are dragging Shamu down a 220 degree road in Nowhere, SC.

So we pull over.

We look at all the tires.... nothing.

We look up..... down.... all around.... nothing....

"Wait! It's this thing!" Bess exclaims, peering down at something hidden from my site by the twelve-foot blades of grass and swarm of locusts/grasshoppers/giant mosquitoes that apparently inhabit this lovely stretch of highway and never get fed but are thrilled by my pudgy, pale arrival.

Me: "What is it?"

Bess: "This panel thing. This happened when we went to the beach. We just
pulled it off and drove on."

(Kelley is on hands and knees, apparently immune to the forty lb. mosquitoes that are doing drive-bys around my head, assessing the situation. It seems that some panel -- the identity of which I still am not sure -- has become partially detached from the underside of the grill.)

Now, in my mind, I'm thinking that pulling major pieces off of the MV is maybe not a great idea considering the tire situation... but hey -- at this point, why not?

Our other option: we can call a tow truck, land a sizzzlin' hot hunk of sweaty redneck man with major butt cleavage, and spend our afternoon in Hell.

Pull that mug off, and let's go. If all of the innards of the Quest are going to fall out in the middle of the highway, maybe they'll wait until we get to a populated area so as to decrease the likelihood of being eaten by ravenous redneck cannibals.

So, with a large piece of the front underside of the van resting peacefully in the trunk of the van, we pull back on the road... just in time to start looking for an exit with a tire shop, as the tire pressure has just dipped below 30.

Part IV tomorrow....

Things I Love About Being A Mommy

1. When Ethan tries to sneak powdered donuts, only to start talking to us about the powdered donuts as he starts walking up the stairs (DING-DING! Sure sign he's got the goods...). Upon having to come downstairs into the den to face K and me, he denies having eaten any donuts... despite the very thick (and obvious) ring of powdered sugar around his mouth. Finally, when K charges him to "Tell the truth!", Ethan confesses... like we didn't know all along...

2. Laney's morning habit of burrowing her head into my neck when I get her out of bed.

3. Ethan's crazy talk. He can't say "thirteen," but he knows that the Pharisees didn't like Jesus... and that he wants to marry his cousin Emma. (We're a little concerned about the latter and hope he grows out of it...)

4. The first time that Laney identified me as "Mommy." We play this identification game where I put my hands on her face and say, "Laney" and then do the same to myself and say, "Mommy." She's never responded until this past week, when I said, "Where's Laney?" and she put her hands up on her little chubby cheeks. I recognized immediately that she was playing our game, so I said, "Where's Mommy?" She reached up to me and put her little pudgy hands on my cheeks, and y'all, I teared up. Girlfriend can say "Dog", "Daddy", "Zelda", "Ethan", and "Stop" -- but she doesn't say "Mommy" or even "Mama" with any clarity. I was beginning to think that maybe she just thought I was some random crazy woman who won't leave her alone.

5. Sort of a reference to #1 -- Ethan's poor sneaky skills. After a stay with my cousin Julie, Ethan became obsessed with Froot Loops. Loves them. Talks about them. Wants them to be declared a food group. One day, he came to the top of the stairs and declared, "Mommy, don't look under my bed, ok?" Ummm.... sure. I'm coming up there right now. He had stolen and stashed the box of sugary stuff under his bed, of course. I love, of course, that I know he can't do anything wrong without some major show of guilt, like proclaiming that the gummies are not in his closet or bringing me a pair of scissors with a cheek-pinching smile of innocence.

6. Watching Laney become a purse and shoe freak right in front of my eyes. Nevermind that she carries her purse like Mammaw going to the grocery store, swinging her arm like she's got some serious business to tend to. We can take care of purse etiquette later.

7. Listening to Ethan play by himself. He is hysterical, and I'm not just saying that because he's my kid. He makes up songs, dances, and shares enthralling conversations between Red Power Ranger and Diego. He's always kind of seemed to believe that he is indeed the star of his own cartoon show, which proves for interesting conversations around the house and in the car. ("Mommy, I fink der's someving mysterious -- berry mysterious -- going on! Someone's going to steal your jewels!" Shut up! I have jewels?!?!) Now it seems he's writing and producing cartoons with his toys. I hope this turns into a lucrative career...

8. Laney's fascination with tiaras. She wears a tiara for at least a few minutes a day almost every day -- of her own accord. Her favorite is a pink sequined tiara headband. I think it's good for her; K. thinks we're both crazy and has vowed to have her removed to protective custody if we start having tea and crumpets in the afternoon.

9. Ethan's tendency to chastise me. This morning, for example, as we're driving to volleyball practice, I am talking on the phone to the other vb coach. He clears his throat politely. "A-hem." When I don't respond, he clears his throat again, only a little louder. "A-HEM!" I ask him what he needs. He tells me -- in a very grown-up, responsible voice -- "Mommy, you are not supposed to talk on the phone when you are driving. Keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road." I'm raising an 80 year old man in a 4 year old's body.

10. Watching Laney explore the world on her own. She loves to sort laundry... read books (in her own language, of course)... stack containers... hide things... find them again like she didn't hide them to begin with... I love to hear her say "Wow!" in her surprised little voice when she sees something she likes or does something on her own for the first time. Her wonder and amazement at everything around her really makes me stop and take notice of things I'd probably normally walk right by.

Got to Read This -- Part II

This past week's trip to Litchfield had all the makings of a fantabulous trip.

For starters, I'd gotten all of my clothes and shoes into one normal sized suitcase ALONG with clothes and shoes for BOTH of the kids.

"What?!?" you may be wondering. "Why is this a huge deal?!"

Normally, I'd have at least two suitcases -- one for clothes, one for accessories, shoes, etc. When we went to Cancun for Spring Break our junior year, I took three suitcases for a four day trip. I am not a light packer.

Second, I was ready to go on time.

Seriously, at this point, we all should have known that something was going to happen because I am n.e.v.e.r. on time.

Ever.

Anyway, we also had a plan.

Megan and Teri, having young bambinos, were going to head down way early to give them plenty of travel time for stopping, feeding, etc. Kelley and Bess and the kids were to meet at my house. We were set.

Monday morning finally dawns. Once everybody arrived, we finally decide to load the three oldest kids -- PJ (Bess's son), Haley (Kelley's oldest), and Ethan (my son) -- plus Savannah, Bess's daughter, into Bess's MV. Kelley, her youngest daughter Taylor, Laney, and I are going in my MV.

We pack and rearrange and shove stuff everywhere until, finally, we are ready to depart.

We get off to a good start....cruising....radio on.... anticipating fun times ahead with our small colony of people. Kids are quiet (well, at least in our van). No one is hungry or has to go potty or hates the person next to him/her.

Woo-hoo! The travel gods are smiling on us.

Well, they might've been smiling then, but it was only because they knew what was coming. They weren't smiling on us; they were laughing at us.

We'd been on the road about an hour or so when Bess calls to say something is wrong with her tire. Kelley looks into the rearview mirror and announces that the front passenger-side tire is flat as a flitter.

Moment of panic. None of us have ever changed a tire.

We pull off on the next exit and park in an empty field-like spot right at the top of the exit.... and start calling every man we know. I personally called K. and my dad and my brother before my brother finally calls me back. I explain our situation, and being the rational law-enforcement type, he comes up with a plan.

Find the manual and follow the instructions for changing the tire. Meanwhile, he'll send the Highway Patrol out to help.

What? Bess doesn't even know where the spare tire is, much less the manual.

Someone says, "We've all got college degrees and then some. We can change a tire y'all."

The trumpets sound as we square off to meet our challenge.

Deep breaths all around. Kelley and Bess start looking for the spare tire; I start looking for the manual. After a few minutes, we unearth both and start reading instructions between phone calls back and forth to get help/advice/GPS location.

And then the adventure begins.

Kelley successfully manages to get the jack under the car and is about to embark on a second career as a mechanic when this man -- albeit wooly-looking -- shows up. I'm on the phone with the HP dispatcher, trying to explain to her where we are. Bess is trying to corral the kids, who are hyping up on Yogos and juice. (That's my bad. Sorry.)

Nothing like six sugar-wired tots to make changing a tire in 90 degree heat fun.

The man -- as we never got his name but will probably be seeing him on some type of Most Wanted Criminals show -- is very, very nice. He takes over the changing of the tire and seems to be very proficient. Kelley and Bess start showering him with thanks, but me -- I think there's something very strange about this man.

For starters, I'd seen him drive by a few minutes earlier.

Second, he starts suggesting that we follow him to an auto shop that he knows about. Hello?!?! This has serial axe murderer written all over it. We're going to be on the news.

Kelley the mechanic and Bess start loading the kids -- all six of them -- back into the vans. The man/axe murderer loads Bess's tire into the back of his truck because we're following him to this "shop"... or whatever he calls his torture dungeon. I call my brother and Highway Patrol -- which still hasn't shown up, thanks -- to let them know that the tire has been changed... while sending subliminal messages to any area policemen for help.

No luck.

So, I start working on the next line of defense: gathering helpful information. As the others are preparing to leave, I am scribbling furiously on the only thing I can find: clean napkins. Physical description, vehicle description, bumper stickers, odd moles, tattoos... whatever. The only thing I don't get before we pull off is the license plate.

That turns out to be a problem.

"I'll go slow," he says. "You shouldn't drive more than 50 or so on that donut tire. It might blow."

So... this completely explains why, once we're all back on the interstate, he takes off, mach 10, like a bat out of hell.

Yes, that's right, he drives away into the 574 degree heat... with Bess's tire.

I call the girls in the other van to find out if they see him, if they can get his license tag.

"I don't see him, Al," Kelley says. "You're going to have to chase him down. We can't go any faster."

At that moment, my MV knew it's sole purpose in life had been revealed. It was built to chase down hardened, tire-stealing criminals.

I whip into the fast lane and slam the pedal to the floor. Unused to this kind of NASCAR-like finesse, the MV hesitates for a minute and then kicks it.

We sail past mere mortal vehicles.

The scary man's truck comes into sight a few minutes later, and I swerve back into the slow lane.

Those observing shiver with fear. They know this is the end.

Well, maybe not the end, but upon seeing a massive heap of intimidating gray steel fly up on his bumper like it might just suck him under the bug grate, he does slow down... way down.

I almost land the MV in the back of his truck with the tire.

I call back to the other MV to tell them that I have located the perp... wait, he's getting off on an exit... and I'm going too fast to get off behind him.

Scary axe murderer, I am going to whip your.... wait... he didn't get off on the exit completely. He just pulled over... and now he's pulling back out into traffic.

Thanks. I almost became lunch for a mean, massive 18-wheeler so he could stop?!? I'm just filing away details.

So, we toodle along down a few more exits, Kel and Bess racing furiously... well, as furiously as they can with a wittle tire... to catch up.

We pull off on the Clinton exit, and I start getting antsy. This does not feel right.

The feeling gets stronger when we pass Elvis Pressley Boulevard.

Are you kidding me?!?! Jesco White is about to step out of the bushes. I just know it.

We finally pull up at this abandoned garage, and I'm thinking, "This is it. We're either going to to die, or we're going to have to beat this freak to a pulp and escape."

I've already called my dad and K to tell them that if I don't make it to the beach, I just need them to find my van. There's a full physical description of the man and of his vehicle (including license plate number since I almost ate his tailgate when he slowed down to -12 mph) in the secret compartment of my van. I'm just hoping he doesn't torch the MV to hide evidence because I'm thinking those DQ napkins aren't going to hold up long to fire.

As I'm preparing to fight my life's battle, this man walks out of the abandoned garage.

Shut. Up.

This is actually a working garage... and apparently belongs to this man.

Whew.

He wheels the van in and takes a look at the tire. Turns out, it needs to be patched.

Wait a second. It's been patched already. He's going to have to plug it.

We have little-to-no-idea what he's talking about, but it's only going to cost $10, so we're cool.

Once the work starts on the tire, the scary man/axe murderer starts fidgeting.

"I'm going to run on, now that y'all are settled," he says.

Kelley and I thank him profusely, as he won't let us pay him. He begins to walk toward his truck, turns back, looks me in the eye, and says, "Y'all need to be careful who you trust."

Seriously.

That's what he said.

Well, now. That makes me feel safe. I just chased an axe murderer down the interstate to retrieve a tire.

This is my theory: When he drove by the first time, he saw just us girls standing out in the deserted lot, and he thought, "Score! Three helpless lasses in a bind. What better opportunity for an axe murderer!"

So he turned around and came back.

Pulling into the lot, he seems harmless enough (part of his master plan), but he's thinking, "This is going to be too easy! They'll be no match for my axe murderer powers!"

Well, until the six kids come running out from behind the vans. At that moment, he realizes his plan has been shot all to pieces.

He might could take three helpless women, but how is he going to wrangle 6 wild children?

He has no choice but to help. And so, he gets out of his truck, defeated by six crazy kids who think that the abandoned lot is actually the beach.

Part III of the saga tomorrow...

Y'all --Seriously -- Read This...

Before you complain about any sort of vacation.

Now, I will say, after (and during) our beach trip with my family, I was more than a little miffed about the fact that no one seemed to understand how group vacations work. Apparently, my girls and I are the only ones who go on group trips together and 1) do stuff together (isn't that the point?!?!) and 2) share the food burden (bring stuff for everyone, split the grocery bill for "common" items, etc.). Anyway, not to get off on that sidenote...

We decided to re-instate the Girls' Trip this summer after a brief hiatus, and we were so excited, so pumped about this trip... but we were not prepared for the events that were to come...

THE HISTORY OF THE GIRLS...

I was raised in Clemson Country... going to games, wandering around campus, thinking orange and white were the only two really good college colors... but when I started looking at colleges, I became hellbent on going to the other public university in the state, the University of South Carolina, despite the fact that Toad (my dad, fellow Clemson alum and retired Clemson employee, and one of the spiffiest people in the entire universe) turned pale and excused himself every time I brought it up.

I was going to USC to become an advertising and public relations hot shot.

Well, that was until my dad figured out how to stop me.

He -- who never denied me anything that I truly wanted -- told he could not pay for me to go to school there. "You can go," he said, "but I cannot write a check to that school."

Well, I knew I hadn't saved a dime toward buying a book, much less paying for a semester, so I panicked... and did the only thing I could think of to do.

I applied to Clemson.

I got my acceptance letter less than two weeks after applying. (Did I mention that my dad is very smart and sneaky? Most of my friends had waited for months -- and were still waiting -- for acceptance letters. He knew how my wittle mind worked, even back then... If they accepted me, I probably wouldn't look anywhere else, since I knew he'd pay for me to go there.)

Did I also mention that my scholarships (not to brag) exceeded my tuition... so I could have gone anywhere? And that he knew all of this was likely during the debate over where I'd go to school?

That Toad...he's a tricky one...

Despite my determination to go anywhere but Clemson, to go far away and learn to live on my own, to go somewhere that people wouldn't know my family, I decided to go to Clemson and continue the family tradition... on the condition that I could live on campus.

(Never mind that my dad's office was a stone's throw from my dorm...)

Now, I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason, and as long as I live, I will swear under oath that God led me to Clemson despite my rebellious ways because I was meant to find my girls.

(And so that my dad could take care of me and bail me out of trouble because I got myself into enough of it.)

So, in the fall, I moved into Young Hall with my BFF Kelley. Kelley and I had been inseparable -- save one small falling out during our 6th grade year that involved my scary friends threatening to jump on her scary friends (and vice versa) in a very dramatic, very middle school type of disagreement-- since 5th grade, so it seemed natural that we would room together.... never mind that we were about as different as two people could be and still get along.

She was neat; I was messy. She was very conscientious; I flew along by the seat of my pants. She was a bit more quiet and reserved; I was a bit more loud and obnoxious.

You get the picture.

On our first day of Freedom (after our parents helped us move in with our disturbingly matched comforters and towels), we met Megan.

Megan is from Greer -- but she's not a redneck, she's quick to tell you. We met Megan because there was a policeman outside her door when Kelley & I came back from lunch. Kelley and I were convinced, of course, that we were living next door to some hardened criminal. Turned out that we were living next door to Megan, who is about as far away from criminal (minus a few fake ID incidences) as anyone can be.

When the policeman left, Kelley and I went next door to investigate and met Megan of G-Town fame. The policeman had come in response to a hang-up call to the local 9-1-1 dispatcher, only to find out that Megan accidentally dialed 9-1-1 instead of 9-1-864 while making a long distance telephone call.

Maybe I should mention at this point that the above incident is typical of Megan's luck. At my rehearsal dinner, for instance, I had a bridesmaid cake with 13 tiny charms attached to ribbon streamers hidden in the cake. Megan's fingers were crossed for the ring, which meant she'd be the next to marry. Instead, she pulled out nothing. The ribbon she chose had somehow become detached from the charm. You see the pattern here.

Anyway, at this point, it's Kelley, Megan, and me. Kelley and I realized that an old friend of hers lived upstairs in our dorm, and at that point, we met Bess. Bess lived with Kelley's elementary school friend and -- turned out -- that she and I had actually worked together at a local newspaper over the summer. Due to some... awkward (?) roommate issues, Bess started spending a lot of time in our rooms, and that was that. Our group grew to four.

Finally, we met Teri. Teri and Megan, like Kelley and I, had been BFFs since way back when. (And can I just say -- who gets to use BFF TWICE in one blog? Life is good). Teri came to Clemson our sophomore year, and just fit right in to the gang. At that point, we also had a couple of other temporary members who came and went as time passed, but the five of us... well, we are permanent.

THE HISTORY OF THE TRIP....

Once we had all graduated, we decided that we needed to start a tradition... like a trip or something... once a year.

We already had a yearly Christmas get-together, but we wanted to do something in the summer since we all taught. (Two elementary, three high school English, thank you.)

The first year, we went to Savannah. Bess didn't make the trip that time, so it was just the four of us.... Megan, Teri, Kelley, and me.

The next trips were to Tybee Island, just off the coast of Savannah... and at some point, we started bringing the kids.

We didn't go last year because I had just had Laney, and Megan and Teri were pregnant.

Once we'd birthed all the babies, we decided to resume the trip.

HOW WE ENDED UP GOING TO LITCHFIELD...

Five adults. Nine children. Is it a surprise that we couldn't find anyone to rent us a house on Tybee that didn't cost five million dollars per night?

And I'll sign off here. Tune in tomorrow to hear every parent's worst nightmare...

Mean People, Vol. II

I was going to write about the strange things you do when you become a parent... like scrubbing your kid's toes with a toothbrush... as I found myself doing yesterday morning before we left the house for our daily excursion. Ethan loves Crocs, and he wears them often... but his feet get really dirty when he does. Apparently, he wears them so often that the dirt has started to permanently adhere to his feet. I was giving him a bath and realized that his toes were still almost black.

I kind of freaked out, thinking gangrene or some form of foot rot had set in... until I realized it was just dirt.... that wouldn't come off. So, I resorted to scrubbing his toes with a baby toothbrush. FYI: Works very well. No toe dirt left.

Anyway, I was going to write about that... until my friend Christi of The Ville (and Canada fame) commented on my mean people post about the vomit girl from Jimmy Buffett.

This is a story that must be told.

In April, after much searching and laboring, I finally got to attend my very 1st Jimmy Buffet concert. I L.O.V.E. Jimmy Buffet, even though I cannot ever remember if his name is spelled with one "T" or two... Buffet?...Buffett? I don't know.

Anyway, Robby -- my cousin Jennifer's hubby -- started all of this last year. He loves Buffet/Buffett (more than me), and we decided we had to go to a concert... but tickets were nowhere to be found.

This year, we decided to get a head start and sign up for the emails that alert you automatically to concert postings...except this one didn't... so we had to buy tickets off of one of the lovely websites that sell concert tickets for 500 times their face values.... (Isn't that called "scalping"?) Anyway, desperate and foolish, we paid 502 times the face value of 6 tickets, and we took off for Hot-Lanta one April afternoon.

Now, the concert entourage included me, K., Robby, Jennifer, Julie (sister of Jennifer, cousin of me, and fun person in general with which to engage in mischief), and Christi (may as well be family... traveling partner, fellow mischief engager-inner, and we'll leave it at that..).

Suffice it to say that we don't get out much.



Kids, jobs, obligations of various and sundry sorts.... so the concert was to be a treat for all.



Well... turns out we got lost (don't even ask how... but never ask Channon for directions to Phillips Arena)... so our tailgate smorgasboard became a mini-van smorgasboard... because we took the MV, of course.... what else would we take to a concert?!?!... and we skipped in just in time for the show.

Well, we ended up not skipping so much as we had nosebleed (one row from the top, thanks) seats.. but really, we were in no frame of mind to care. We hiked up the vast mountain... I mean stairs... before us, pumped because we were about to experience Jimmy.



The first bit of the concert was great... the seats, although high altitude, allowed a pretty good view, and the two 'neck women a few rows in front of us provided pretty good entertainment...

Enter 986 members of your favorite local fraternity and their numerous (and multiplying) girlfriends. Ok, not so great, but really... we were all there to see Jimmy, so it should have been fine.



Turns out that when you stuff 986 people + girlfriends into 20 seats, it gets a bit crowded. I got gently edged out of my seat by a really obnoxious (and vain -- but obviously insecure) young whippersnapper. K. had to intervene (like a good husband) and ask him to move. (I later found out that K. was really concerned that if he didn't step in, my 'neck roots were going to come out...)

All seems to be going well again... and then she shows up.

Vomit Girl.

Now, let me take this moment to remind you that we are 1 row from the very top.... and most people would not climb that far (willingly) for any reason other than if their tickets were there... like us.

And, apparently, Vomit Girl.

I didn't notice her at first, but after a while, I became aware that there is a life form behind me. I turned around to see a young woman... probably in her 20s... laid across two seats behind me. I asked her if she was ok; K. asked if she needed help. She waved us off. I turn back around and forget her...

Until I hear this odd noise... I've heard the noise before, but I can't place it....OH MY GREAT AUNT BERTHA!!! SHE IS YAKKING IN THE SEAT!!!



By this time, the rest of the group has figured out what is happening and turned around. We stared at her in horror/disgust as she finishes her vile business... and then watch in disbelief as she GETS UP AND LEAVES.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen! This drunk skank climbed 1,000 steps to the last row of the arena to pueke. She hadn't been sitting there the whole time, turns out. She appeared sometime after the intermission for the sole purpose of ralphing.

Did I mention that there was a bathroom right next to the entrance of the portal where we were sitting?

I could not believe it.



We, of course, became enraged as we realized she was actually leaving us with her vomit. I believe I said something to the effect of "I hope your drunk, vomiting carcass falls down the stairs, you nasty skank."

Grown up and mature, I know, but she did throw up in the seat directly behind me.



After she stumbled down the stairs and we/I recovered our dignity, we began to converse about the complete ridiculousness of the incident. K., always much more pleasant and well-mannered than I will ever be, said, "Well, at least it doesn't stink..." and we agreed.




This is, indeed, a good point. If someone has to yak behind your chair, it's definitely a plus if it doesn't smell bad.

We decided to go back to enjoying the concert... only to be overwhelmed by the enticing smell of vomitous drunkus about 30 minutes later.

I believe that, if we could have found her, we might have dismembered her.


Vomit Girl, wherever you are, I just want you to know that you have officially been hexed by The Ville, and your life from now until eternity will be miserable because you didn't have the stinkin' sense to deposit your smelly vomit into a proper receptacle. May some other drunk heifer yak in the seat directly behind you at every concert that you attend for the rest of your life.

Mean People Suck

I don't know if it's the mini-van or what... but I have encountered more than my fair share of mean people -- mostly drivers -- here lately, and I'm about done being pleasant.

Mean people of the world, you've been fairly warned.

Example 1:
While on my way to the bank -- driving the MV, of course --, I pull out into the highway after looking carefully both ways. After the MV pulls clear out into the appropriate lane, this service truck comes flying around the curve. I speed up so as not to cause a traffic hazard, but this bleepity-bleep -- instead of doing the normal thing (applying brakes and cursing me under his breath even though it was clear when I pulled out and he was going way too fast) -- pulls up right on my bumper.

Whatever.

I hate to be tailgated, but I'll slow down to a minimal crawl and make you suffer while laughing as your face turns unnatural shades of red.

Example #2: (a continuation of sorts of Example #1)
Up ahead, a car stops to turn left across traffic. The bleepity-bleep behind it (not the same bleepity-bleep who is still, at present, tailgating the MV) swerves around it, using the shoulder of the road as a traffic lane.

Now, this ticks me off. No sense in it, I'm telling you. That's not a lane, and it's not going to kill you to stop and wait for the car to turn.

Of course, this one car's ridiculous behavior encourages the ridiculous behavior of others (much like what happens in the classroom, except these morons are in cars and not in desks), so five other cars whiz around this car, which is still waiting to turn. (This all takes place in the span of, like 1 minute.)

I don't swerve; I stop. My kids are in the car, and I'm not taking the chance of some silly person pulling out of the gas station up ahead, thinking traffic is stopped behind this car and ramming the MV, causing it to go out of commission as the fastest van in the world.

Example #3: (a continuation, still of Examples #1 and #2)
Ok, so here I am stopping, and what does the bleepity-bleep tailgater behind me do? He swerves and HONKS at me.

Sweet justice is served, however, when just as he swerves around me, spraying gravel everywhere, the car in front of me turns, and he's really only succeeded in passing me... only to get behind a really slow car.

Nah-nah-nee-BOO-BOO.

Unfortunately for me, he does not work for a company who is concerned about how their drivers are driving (shocker there...), and there is no 1-800 number bumper sticker for me to call to complain about his silliness.

Example #4:
Upon reaching the bank (finally), I pull up to the ATM to make a deposit. I pull the envelope out of the little envelope thingy and proceed to fill it out. About halfway through, I become aware of this sound. (Again, this has all taken about 1 minute.)

What the heck?

I look in my rearview mirror, and it's this mean man in a big honkin' Expedition behind me, laying on his horn.

Excuse me, Mr. Rudeness 2007, but what gives you the right to honk at me? I was here first, dadnabbit.

Of course, the realization that he is indeed cursing me with his horn freaks me out, and I pull forward, only to realize that I haven't made my deposit.

I whip the MV around quickly and pull in behind him.

If I hadn't been fuming about the fact that he dare honk at me, I would've laid on my horn.

THAT would've been funny.

Instead, I answer Ethan's 574 rapid-fire questions about why we're going back through the line by saying, "The mean man in front of us is impatient, so Mommy let him go first."

So there, Mean Man. You may have gotten to make your transaction first, but my 4 year old thinks you're right up there with the bad guys from Power Rangers Mystic Force.

I, on the other hand, am a good guy because I played nice. I get to be the Pink Ranger.

Ethan doesn't have to know that I sent out a telepathic curse that the impatient man would get behind a fleet of cars going 20 mph or less in a no passing zone. That might be cause to revoke my Pink Ranger status.

My point is that all of this happened within a 20 minute span. That's a lot of meanness to encounter in such short period of time -- and all of it was pretty thoughtless and easily avoided. Not to get on a soap box -- I know I'm guilty of being impatient and rude, too -- but I think crap like this is a significant part of what's wrong with our world today.

I see it with my students a lot; they get so wrapped up in what's going on with them that they forget to be concerned or even polite to others around them. K. says he deals with it in the Big Boy World, too, but nobody really seems to do anything about it... and I'm not really sure what can be done.

Maybe I just notice because I don't want my kids to grow up to be mean people, and I consciously try to be a little nicer, hoping they'll notice my example. Now, I'm not saying I'm some sort of Mother Theresa nor am I campaigning for Mom of the Year. I'm just saying that hearing a 3-year old yell, "Watch where you're freakin' going, Moron!" as he's driving his tricycle will put things in perspective for you.

It wouldn't hurt any of us to be a little nicer or a little more patient. You never know whose day you might make... or who's having a really crappy day and wouldn't mind putting a cap in somebody's A and just needs an excuse... or what 4-year old (with a crazy mommy that will stalk your mean carcass and teach you a lesson or two about being nice) is watching and learning from your example.