Gestated Cinco has graduated from the school of X-Man medicine taking. Therefore, I get Amoxicillin raspberried into my face four times a day now instead of the typical two. But I suppose I deserve it. I myself feel like squirting garlic oil, hot compresses and everything else homeopathic into the faces of all those who sang the praises of garlic curing ear infections. Nothing solidifies your status as a mediocre mother quite like sitting in urgent care with two babies and three ear infections. Well, four if you count the double twice. Natural cures my eye. Well actually more like my kiddos ears but whatever. Not awesome.

I'm feeling frustrated and thwarted at every turn. As the reality of the end of life has been starting us in the face for the last week, the father figure and I have had some important discussion. We need to solidify our plans and wishes for our children should anything happen to us. Unfortunately, I've been blogging for the last year, which makes finding a home for our five children that much more difficult. "Seriously, you won't even know they're there" rings just a bit hollow. Although I could try the tactic "hey you can't do any more damage than I've done!" Seriously, Cinco just took her diaper off and started eating it. Which is why my blogging is becoming fewer and farther between antics of my babies.

Anyway, I think we've settled on family to raise our hellions  offspring. At some in time we should probably alert them to this fact, although it would make the reading of our still non existent will much more exciting, everyone cowering in a corner bracing for an influx of a basketball team's worth of children.

But the father figure was incredibly insensitive during the more personal aspects of the conversation. I am not a demanding person. Ok, that's not at all true, but he knew what he was getting into when he signed that marriage license. Somehow he didn't seem at all impressed by my list of things that were important. I have some particular wishes for the kids, if he were to find himself raising them on his own. We covered those. But then we moved on to some particular concerns of mine. Most important, that should he hear that something serious has happened to me, please stop by the house first and make sure it's clean before coming to the hospital. Or telling any other family. The last thing I need is to be lying in a coma know that my house is full of people silently judging my housekeeping abilities.

He was slightly listening when I first started outlining my concerns. But I think it was about the time I started mentioning making sure the closets were clean and the drawers were organized before calling my parents that he actually started paying attention. In a "wow I'm sitting next to a real live crazy person" manner. He had a befuddled look on his face as he stammered "what, what huh? No!"

Now this might seem odd to some, but I'm the kind of person who likes to make sure my house is clean before I leave it so that if something happens, the police won't think I'm a horrible house keeper. The father figure's response to that was "Who thinks like this?" Uh, the mother of your children. That's who.

It's not that I have odd priorities. It's because this is what I am. A homemaker. And if I make a messy home, well that's not good now is it? The father figure fails to see the logic in this. I tried to point out that it was a random Tuesday that the news cameras showed up at our house. Of course that was because credit card companies kept sending six month old Baby credit card applications. And refused to stop because she wouldn't send them a letter requesting that they stop. I threatened to max them all out right before Christmas and declare bankruptcy, leaving Baby's credit plenty of time to clear up before she needed it, but that didn't seem faze them. So I complained to the local "On Your Side" reporters. And they came on over. Unannounced. To a home that the father figure had not cleaned up while I was at work because "what's the point, they're only going to mess it up again."

Talk about an "I told you so." You think that the father figure would listen to me when it comes to keeping the house clean. But not so much.

So, if anything does happen to me, no one can come to the house until Merry Maids has left. You would think that the simple solution would be to keep the house clean. And that is the simple solution, but I live with X-Man. Who was greatly outraged that I wouldn't hold him while vacuuming today, he wrapped himself around my ankles and howled "hold me, hold me mommy." X-Man isn't the sort of fellow to help you hold him. If you lift him up, you're holding him, all forty pounds of his dead weight. Which then makes vacuuming and sweeping and the like very difficult. And considering the guilt I had due to this conditions of his ears, the "hold me mommy" pleas won out. Not to mention Cinco is very uninterested in my holding her and very interested on seeing exactly how many things she can fit on the floor. Her personal goal is to take every item in the house and place it on the living room floor.

That and walking. Gestated Cinco just took two steps. I'm not ready for Ambulatory Cinco by any stretch of the imagination. This cannot end well.

MOM! Would you PLEASE explain to Mac why cockroaches are bad!!!" There are tapestries that I really, really don't want unravel. But I don't trust Baby and Mac alone anywhere. I eemphasized my lack of knowledge of cockroaches due to lack of experience.

Gestated Cinco and X-Man have determined to remain sick for the rest of their lives. At least that's how it feels. Cinco is annoyed by her congestion and appears to hold me personally responsible. X-Man is an Italian male, therefore every illness is the single worst he has ever experienced and he is completely helpless. So much so that he laid outside the bathroom door wailing "help me" . And so I had to carry him back to the couch to watch more Thomas. The couch he has been laying on watching Thomas until I tried to sneak off.

He and Cinco are passed out in my lap. Both are completely uninterested in sharing their space. Fortunately they united in their displeasure and fought off the laptop. So I'm trying to do this while holding them and a phone. It is not easy.

They both smell of garlic. X-Man was holding his ear earlier tonight and saying "ow". And I have a sneaking suspicion that they both have ear infections. So I mixed up some garlic oil and tried dropping that in their ears. It may have helped Cinco, X-Man seems unfazed and Mac wants spaghetti for dinner. Or pizza.


.

When you marry someone you marry their family. It's more of a merger than a coupling. This is a great thing if the family's not all that crazy. To have your circle of those who love you grow is a wonderful thing.

But there's a downside. The more people you let into your heart, the more holes that are left as people slip away.

The father figure brought into our marriage a most remarkable woman. Nonna emigrated from Italy when it became clear Mussolini was bad news. She married, raised five children and enjoyed eight grandchildren and eleven great grandchildren.

She was the epitome of maternal. She fretted and loved and soothed. She spoke the language of food and spoke lovingly. If you weren't eating, she was concerned. She told me to stop chasing my toddlers and sit down because my coffee would get cold. And I needed to have a cookie while I sat.

And that was Nonna. Everyone loved her. Everyone felt loved by her. When I told my mother that Nonna had passed my mother exclaimed "Oh no, we love her!" They had only met her once, at our wedding, and yet she touched their hearts. It takes an extraordinary woman to move complete strangers like that. But Nonna was an extraordinary woman.

Nonna's life wasn't easy. She left home to start anew. She buried two children, one as an infant, one as an adult. But she didn't let it defeat her. She didn't choose to engage in self pity. She chose to focus on those who were still there with her and to embrace them fiercely.

I didn't feel like an outsider when I was with her. I wasn't an expansion member in her life, I was family. I was her grandson's wife and so I was her granddaughter. She made it so easy to feel comfortable and at home with her. She was the personification of love. One of the last times I saw her, she gave me a kiss and said "You are a good mother."  I'm not often moved to tears, but those words meant the world to me.

After Baba was born, we made a point of taking the kids down to see their great grandmother every year. It was a hassle. Long drive, young children, not much of a vacation. But my children got to know their Nonna. They got to have her arms wrap them in love. And they will know those arms when they feel them again.

May perpetual light shine upon her.

The father figure decided that he would let me sleep in. He had been present during some of Cinco's wilder antics the previous night and had taken pity on me.

As it was Saturday, X-Man and Mac got up at the crack of dawn. It wasn't yet 7am. We were alerted to this fact by X-Man screaming about something. Or nothing. It could go either way. The father figure entered the girls room, where both boys were, engaging in some sort fisticuffs. Because where better to air grievances than your sleeping sisters' room? Certainly not your parents' room. At least if you want to live.

The father figure shooed the boys back in their room and encouraged them to play with all the loot that Santa had brought them. X-Man wasn't sold on the idea and continued his protestations. But the father figure cheerily said "Have fun", shut the door and headed back down stairs. He then sweetly said "I'm shutting the door so you can sleep." And there I was, enjoying the closest thing to peace and quiet that can exist in my life.

And then the phone rang. The father figure, previously in the running for husband of the month, discovered that his price was indeed time and a half and told his employer he'd come in to work. And with that, I was up and at it.

I'm still not clear if the father figure was entirely well intentioned when he shooed X-Man back into his bedroom. Because five minutes later, as I headed up to check on the boy, I could smell his accomplishments in the hallway. And I discovered what possibly could have been the reason for the boy's screaming. X-Man's diaper was around his ankle. And yes, it was most certainly smelly. Did I mention he was wearing footed pajamas?

Yeah. Yay me. It was pretty clear that the diaper had fallen down before the source of the smell entered the equation. And that I was going to have to wrestle a fecal covered toddler into a shower. And decide if the brand new Christmas present jammies were best consigned to a bio hazard bag.

By the time X-Man made it into the shower, the carnage spread over three rooms. Don't ask how. I wasn't certain how severe the damage was, so I unzipped him in the bedroom, shrieked and he took off running. With pjs around his ankles. This of course led to the inevitable butt plant on the new carpet.

And I ended up telling the father figure "Don't try to be helpful again." Which I think just might have been the reaction he was angling for.

Things that I've have learned because I left my children with the father figure.

X-Man will stick his head in a cereal bowl. While the milk is being poured in it. Because it is too long to wait for a drink otherwise. He might die.

Baby can climb the chimney.

Slurpees stain clothing.

Showers can be taken without soap. And without water hitting your body. If you play with the bath toys loud enough, daddy will believe you have showered.

X-Man can use my phone. But not the father figure's.

"It's not that scary to stand on the roof."

Even though mommy is the one who bought every single birthday present and Christmas present for every single child, and wrapped every single one, twenty minutes of video games with daddy makes him the best parent EVER TO EXIST.

Furthermore, taking the children to Chuck E. Cheese makes you the best parent to ever exist or who will exist in the future. Even though the parent who did not take you will be the parent who cares for you while you suffer from whatever biological weapon infected you there. Making you chicken noodle soup while you continue to ask for pizza.

The arcade trumps the park any day. Except the days when the father figure suggests going to the park. Then he is the best parent TO EVER EXIST.

The children should eat healthy. Except when they are left when the father figure. Then they should eat chicken nuggets and doughnuts. And someone should prepare them a healthy dinner.

X-Man can throw overhanded. But only indoors.

Thomas the Tank Engine is boring. Star Wars is not.

Telling a two year old to go to bed is the same thing as putting a two year old

to bed.

What constitutes folded clothes is subjective. My views are unique in the family.

Bringing home a movie to watch...awesome. Bringing home food to eat......but I don't like that!

The sickness is still with us. I'll spare you the gory details, but there are plenty. Round one was a barrel of monkeys. Round two is living up to expectations.

I survived round two, which did actually surprise me at times. This point it's particularly challenging because X-Man is flying high. Cinco is no worse for wear. Mac is well enough, until he passes out for a two hour nap on the couch. Baby and Baba are down for the count. It's challenging try to juggle their needs while wrangling the healthy active monkeys.

Not that X-Man isn't helping. Baby was laying on the couch, with a cool washcloth on her forehead, some comfort against the fever she was suffering from. X-Man made a break from the dinner table, completely spagettied. He did, however, see fit to grab the cloth off of Baby, wipe his hands and face and then drop it back on her face.

So. There's that.

Oddly enough, I find myself exiting 2013 more happy, more hopeful and more peaceful than I entered it. Despite........

Things I said in 2013.

if you can't remember how to make your bed I'm pretty sure I can't remember how to make dinner.

I stay home with my kids because no one can give the quality of care to my children that I can. No one. I'm in a class by myself. On a side note, X-Man can remove his diaper while still wearing footed pajamas. He's faster when the diaper is poopy. And Mac just announced "I like to wear my underwear for three days if it has a cool picture on it." I didn't say what class my childcare was........

I don't know why all my children don't have red hair. I also don't know why any of my children have red hair.

I know that it's in New York, but the name is still the Statue of Liberty.  

I don't know who came up with contractions, but I'm pretty sure that they didn't want you to cry about them.

Don't open the oven when food is cooking. Just don't open the fridge. Don't shut the dishwasher while I'm unloading it. 

Why are you trying to climbing into the oven. Yes I know it's hot! It's an oven!

Don't lick the baby.

That which does not kill you makes you stronger. Which means this family is headed towards Incredible Hulkness or the morgue.

I don't really know what you want me to do about Mac continuing to say that Madagascar is a real place. 

Don't lick the baby's toes.

Things I thought in 2013


I mean, really, who HASN'T sat at the exit of Target while their son empties his rubber rain boots of all the food that fell in them. And then put them on his feet. And then remove them....because there's still food in them. 

Brushing X-Man's teeth with his own toothbrush=torture. Not brushing X-Man's teeth with any other family member's toothbrush = torture.

Well I guess if you have to jaunt down to labor and delivery, that's as good a time as ever to discover you only shaved on leg this morning.

Today's capricious and arbitrary parental rulings...thou shalt not kick the lap top, thou shalt not climbing into the baby's bed, mostly especially while she is sleeping. Protestations continue.

My mom stare is completely wasted on my children. Fortunately it is not wasted on shoplifters at Target.