Fall what?

We just returned from Fall Break, which is Nashville's way of saying, "By the first week of October, we realize what a colossally bad idea it is to send the kids back to school closer to the Fourth of July than Labor Day, so here's the week that you could have had in August with the rest of the country so you can completely destroy all semblance of a routine you finally had going. Oh, and we're still going ahead with your child's sports schedule because we also realize the rest of the world continues as planned so good luck planning a trip or anything that doesn't revolve around an out-of-town game."

So we went to Louisville for a hockey tournament.

I'm not complaining--I don't hate Fall Break until this Monday after when we all have to go back after 10 days of sleeping at odd times and alternating meals between pizza and lukewarm powdered eggs out of chafing dishes at the Homewood Suites. I feel like I've woken up hungover from a night of huffing airplane glue from an EPA case study on how not to ventilate an ice arena.

Oh wait, we did.

But we made fun anyway. When we weren't hallucinating or vomiting from the lingering Zamboni fumes, we managed to take in a movie, do some shopping and even go to the Louisville Slugger museum and factory which I highly recommend if you're ever out that way. Before we left, the kids had a couple of sleepovers and homemade baked goods were consumed, so it was a fine week no matter how you slice it.

Even if it's a big ole slice of warm pumpkin pie instead of a refreshing Key Lime.

Obituary for Dancer the Hamster

Dancer the Hamster died of unknown causes recently. 

Dancer, parents unknown but somehow related to Harry Houdini, gift to Suburban Diva and bane of her existence, torturer to dog Jingle, forgotten responsibility of Amy and Jessica, and worst idea ever to Sean; passed (seemingly through a hole in the wall) in late April after a brief visit from a neighbor child who left the cage door open.

Originally from Petsmart, Dancer spent his early days in a shaving-lined cage in Amy’s room. After failing to keep Amy sleeping in her own room as promised, Dancer then moved to a bigger habitrail in the playroom, where he would enjoy frequent over-feedings as a guilt assuaging exercise from the children. Dancer was instrumental in cementing the firm beliefs of Ms. Diva that all rodents should be kept outdoors, and that the movie G-Force was a propaganda piece for naive parents.

After several months without communication, the family has declared the rodent to be deceased; finally reunited with that giant wheel in the sky. He leaves behind a water bottle, a half-eaten apple twig and a much too small ball after his unfortunate weight gain. 

Due to the absence of his remains, there will be no formal funeral arrangements, however in lieu of flowers, the bereaved are asked to donate to Ms. Diva’s legal defense fund when she kills her husband for buying a rat with wanderlust and therapy for their children when they eventually do locate the remains in the playroom.

                                                                         Dancer the Hamster

          December 23, 2011-Way longer than I thought

I can't win in Vegas on many levels it seems

Basically I've been avoiding Legionnaires Disease my entire life.

I know that sounds like a rather random pursuit--and it is--but let me assure you it's entirely true. I blame on my mother, because I have never known anyone with this affliction, am not personally familiar with any of the affects, nor really know exactly what it is, but I do have an unreasonable fear of theme park misters and water parks. And I swore early on that if I ever became First Lady, the eradication of this disease would be my personal Betty Ford Clinic.

After a lifetime of holding my breath past Splash Mountain and resisting the urge to hurling those stupid spray bottle fans that always seem to mist me in line for a churro by sweating strangers, I have now been exposed to my worst nightmare of dying a slow and painful death in a VFW lodge, and I was no where near a log flume.

Yep, we were in the freaking Aria Hotel in Vegas on the dates in question.

The only possible upside I can find in this situation is that so far Sean nor I haven't experienced any symptoms yet and when I do finally become First Lady my charitable foundation won't seem nearly as hollow now.

It's DST o'clock, do you know where your sanity is?

How are you doing, Buddy?

I’m just checking in on this Monday morning after Daylight Savings Time to see how you’re holding up? It looks like that lost hour of sleep was a bit hard on you. No offense.

The important thing to keep in mind is that you survived. The initial cardiac arrest threat when you woke up in the middle of the night instead of your normal too early alarm has passed now, so you can just skip right to the being pissed off part. Hit the snooze button just a few more times out of spite, and then make a big pot of coffee while scowling. It’s perfectly normal.

I know it’s hard, but you’re going to have to move those clocks ahead now. All of them. Even that one that you keep hopefully on the real time so that every time you look at it you can remember why you feel so crappy. It will be difficult, but it’s time to rip the Band-Aid off.

And no, you can’t move to Indiana or Arizona where they don’t participate in Daylight Savings Time. You’ve got responsibilities here--a life--albeit an hour shorter one. Besides, you don’t want to be a contrarian. People in those states are just sleep-deprived from the fall when we all got our extra hour.

Look at the bright side. (That won’t come until about 11:00 a.m. when the sun finally comes up, but still.) You can use this as a perfect excuse to your boss, teacher, spouse or IRS agent. “I was going to do ___________ last night about 2 am, but the government took that time away from me so I couldn’t. It’s a conspiracy.” Because it totally is.

No one ever said messing with the space time continuum was going to be easy. Did you think Christopher Lloyd looked like that before he invented the flux capacitor? It’s an ugly, messy business. There’s bound to be some sleeplessness with that. Just ask February 29th.

Wow, this is worse than I thought. Look, I wasn’t going to mention this but since you’re so bad off just think--only 244 more days until it ends! Fall Back! You can sleep in again in November.

I didn’t mean to make you cry.

Ok, how about a joke to cheer you up?

Knock knock.
This is the part you say, Who’s there?
Spring ahead.
Spring ahead who?
Some spring a heads are going to roll if I don’t get a nap soon.

You’re right. That wasn’t funny.

At all.

But with all of my nonsense combined with that extra hour we’ve been grieving, it’s almost Tuesday.

You can repay me by doing the same for me tomorrow when I’m still running late and sleep-deprived and realize the joke is on me.

Happy DST.

©2011 Tracey Henry

Here’s where to send your support tomorrow. Divamail@SuburbanDiva.com

My fresh hell as a mother

LACROSSE!

Twice the hits and half the pads as hockey.

Two minutes into his very first game and a grade 2 concussion.

I can't believe I'm saying this--but hockey is a gentlemen's sport.

Snow Days

We had our first of many last week. On Monday, we got hit with about 4 inches legit of snow. My kids immediately went sledding despite having not much snow, not much hill and not much sled. It was fun nonetheless.

We played in it, and then came inside to hot cocoa and cookie baking. It was really beautiful, cozy and very Norman Rockwell-esque.

Until you had to drive in it.

Now I am a salt-seasoned driver. I learned to drive on the potholed roads of lower Michigan--a slippery, slushy, snowy mess nine months out of the year. You can't get your driver's license there without knowing how to successfully navigate icy roads and scrape your windshield with a cassette cover.

I had this.

Until I realized that the state of Tennessee doesn't own snow plows. Or salt trucks. No, the only tool they have in their snow-removal arsenal is the sun, with the hope it melts the white stuff on the ground by rush hour.

It doesn't.

Tennesseans are quick to tell you that this is out-of-the ordinary weather for them--that it almost NEVER snows here at all, and if it does, it certainly never sticks.

Tennesseans are liars. Because although they are really wimpy about the snow, they were not surprised by it. And the hardware store on the corner sold snow shovels.

I rest my case.

Not long now

(Please note that I'm typing with my fingers crossed because I've grown very superstitious and weary these last few weeks, so I can't jinx anything via blogging.)

I'm about to fax the last redundant document over to the mortgage company in preparation for closing tomorrow. That's all I want to say about that until they hand us the keys.

But in other news, I wrote an informative piece for the Times and a ridiculous one for you.

Someone please buy this house in a hurry so I don't have to take the dog and baby for rides in the car all month long

I'm certain that in the depths of hell, Lucifer holds a Sharpie in one hand and a roll of packing tape in the other and demands his minions to "declutter" hades whilst children and the world's hairiest dog run amok.

No, we haven't moved yet--we're just getting clearing, clearing, dumping, packing and otherwise staging the house to appear that six people and a dog don't live here.

And it's not even on the market yet. I can't friggin' wait to start showing the house with 4.2 minutes notice to clean up after Jessie and Jingle and get all of us out of the house while strangers criticize the color of the drapes. I am going to be even a more raving lunatic than usual.

Luckily, we haven't been around too much to mess things up too badly with all of the partying going on. There are many events and by the time we actually make it up to Nashville we will be suffering from gout and cirrhosis of the liver. But it sure is fun and is a nice distraction from the endless home repair.

School begins for the rest of the clan, and I'm not even going to pretend that I will be going back to the gym or writing anything other than "Misc. sports memorabilia" on cardboard boxes in hell.

Save me.....

First Day of High School

Maybe in high school they'll teach him how I can turn photos the right way on blogger.

Fashion disclaimer: it's a uniform.

My human vending machine

Well, this was a new one.

One week ago, Jesso swallowed a coin. And by "swallowed," I mean she literally ate it. I heard her chewing metal, looked over and asked what she had in her mouth. She swallowed, gulped and struggled to get it down, but then finally after she said, "I have a penny in my belly."

And so, the penny pursuit began.

Of course, the actual ingestion occurred at 5:05 p.m.--just in time for my frantic call to go directly to the nurse's line at All Children's rather than my pediatrician's office so I got the added humiliation of that aspect in addition to being a moron. After determining that she wasn't choking, they told me that we would just "have to let it pass" in three days.

That's grossspeak for going through her leavings searching for a coin the same color as her, er, leavings.

Three days came and went. It was a weekend, so I gave it until Monday before I called back. Then Tuesday because I really didn't want to call. And then Wednesday came, and still no sign, so I took her back.

If after a week of stool samples the home edition doesn't yield any results, then an X-ray is prescribed to see where the foreign object has lodged. So we went to the hospital and got the insurance shake-down before going up to radiology where a team of doctors looked for a penny in Jesso's belly.

After 2 hours of waiting and testing and talking, the X-ray was clear.

Lincoln had left the building.

Sometime over the weekend, it "had passed" and escaped the radar of my plastic fork and gag reflex.

I think we just spent 1000 Washingtons looking for that Lincoln.

I'll be back when she's 20

I haven't been posting much because I'm in the midst of potty-training.

Send help.

(Or just more laundry soap.)

Music to whose ears?

I readily admit to buying a lot of stupid and worthless crap over my tenure as a parent. Fad toys that were popular for -8 seconds, expensive video game systems….Moon Sand. But there is one item that has never crossed my Target cart, and that’s a KidzBop album.

You’re familiar with this little gem--it’s the CD that features a bunch of unknown children “singing” pop songs, because there’s nothing quite like six year-olds reminding you that if you liked it you should have put a ring on it. Off key.

Now I’m not judging, but who exactly does this music appeal to? As an adult, I get kid karaoke every day from the back seat of my car from children I have given birth to without paying $14.99 +shipping and handling. My kids have no use for this--they really want Miley Cyrus singing a Miley Cyrus song, not Mrs. Frankenberger’s fourth grade remedial music class.

And yet, we are on KidzBop 17! That means this has been successful enough to warrant seventeen different versions of this Top 40 kindergarten chorus.

I just don’t get it. Some lyrics to these popular songs are pretty catchy when sung by Beyonce on the radio, but don’t translate all that well to an elementary school sing-along. When I hear a pre-pubescent voice croon out that they want to party like a rockstar, it’s awkward. Not to mention creepy.

So this all begs two very important questions: besides the parents of Mrs. Frankenberger’s fourth graders and people who want all of their favorite songs destroyed in a school Christmas pageant gone horribly, horribly wrong; who exactly is buying this?

(Question number two is more rhetorical: when five year-olds are singing about “trippin’ wit da Osbournes,” is this before or after their naps?)

Ok, maybe I am judging just a little.

(Cross-Posted on Whoa Momma of the St. Pete Times)

At least we're eating well

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am pretty sure that 2010 is out to kill me, and here we are twelve days in and the death order is still out on my head.

Thanks, New Year. You are kind of a douchebag.

But when I find that the calendar has turned homicidal maniac, I turn to the stove. I wish I turned to writing prolific prose or even a mediocre blog once in a while, but the stove is my Kevlar.

I've been cooking. A lot. Mostly soups and stews and anything that I can fit into my new Le Crueset lime green dutch oven and things that fall into the luscious category, "Comfort Food."

And that's pretty much it.

It's boring, but tasty around here while the dogs get called off.